I’m amazed at the quality of most of the pictures posted here. I only own an older Canon ixus, but I did notice that one of the species I’ve taken a picture of is not to be found anywhere on SF. It’s a picture I took of a friends aquarium and it shows the bottom-dwelling Characidium phoxocephalum in typical resting position.

Hi plesner, is this the common species in the hobby i.e. the one sold as C. fasciatum, or just very similar?

Hi Matt,

I think most species of Characidium have been labeled as Characidium fasciatum at one time or another. Furthermore, most Characidium species are fairly similar in appearance.

This one is from Colombia and the exporter labeled it as C. phoxocephalum and as being from Rio Cauca in Colombia. The people at the store where it was bought are usually rather good at identifying all those weird fish they import from all over the world and they too thought that C. phococephalum was the right name.

Except that this one is in better condition than most specimens I’ve seen pictures of, it does appear to be a C. phoxocephalum. They did appear a lot more greyish at first, but when they had settled in, the color between the dark markings on the body became yellowish in all 8 of them. My friend still keeps the group in the same 140 liter aquarium where he originally put them. He has attempted breeding them a couple of times, but nothing has happened so far.